Carl Straussner is a Classical Guitarist, Composer, and Audio Engineer hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa. Now residing in Boston, where he completed his master’s degree in Classical guitar Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music under virtuoso guitarist, Eliot Fisk.

In addition to maintaining an active concert schedule as a soloist, performing in premiere venues in the United States and South Africa, He also performs in two classical duos – one with Classical guitarist Raley Beggs (USA), and the other with classical/jazz violinist Elinor Speirs (SA), where you are likely to hear lively arrangements of classical and jazz music from the guitar canon, as well as interesting pieces from around the world including South America, Europe, United States of America, and Africa (namely Mali, Nigeria and South Africa) in thrilling live concerts.

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Carl also thrives as a recording artist and mixing engineer, and has worked on an extensive array of multimedia projects including: Film Composition and sound design for Singapore based multimedia studio, Hei Studios, where he composed music for various scenes of the film: How to Break A window (2019), and was the lead sound Designer for the Substation’s Septfest (2020) performance series promotion videos.

Carl has two albums under his belt as a producer/mixing engineer – and has worked on albums for US based Cello/piano duo, Duo Amie (Music and the Mind 2020) as well as American Classical guitarist Adam Levin, who’s 2021 album – 21st Century Spanish Guitar: Vol.IV, reached number one on the contemporary classical billboard and received a Silver medal in the instrumental category of the Global Music Awards.

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Carl was honoured to receive a fellowship at the historic St. Botolph Club of Boston from 2017 – 2020, where he joined an array of Boston’s finest Painters, writers, poets and musicians in a three year long fellowship, performing regularly at the club and working with the fellows on collaborative projects including a series of poems by Jordan Escobar, where Carl composed and mixed music and sound design for the series, and two separate Exhibitions by German Painter Wilhelm Neusser, where Carl composed and arranged music for the online part of the exhibitions  which were shown in Boston, and Karlsruhe, Germany.

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